(January 02, 2009)—Time Warner Cable Inc. and Viacom, Inc., reported early Thursday the two had reached an agreement and several cable TV networks would continue to be available without interruption.

The issue was about carriage fees - fees charged by cable companies to rebroadcast cable network signals.

There were 19 Viacom channels that stood the chance of being dropped from cable networks had the agreement not been reached by midnight Jan. 1. Those included MTV, Comedy Central, several Nickelodeon channels as well as others.

Had the agreement not been reached, as many as 15.7 million cable TV subscribers would have been affected.

The negotiators agreed to extend the deadline by one hour last night and very shortly after announced they had reached a contract, the details of which have not yet been made public.